When faith and football don't mix

MR says: You can throw a Hail Mary at a public school football game, but you can't actually hail Mary. Love the irony.

Where's the line between freedom of religion and the separation of church and state? It's a question many cities and particularly public schools have had to ask in the past few months. Most recently, a group of high school cheerleaders in Texas have come under fire for using biblical quotes and banners at football games.

While the Constitution does support an individual's right to worship, it also frowns upon the state, or in this case a state-sponsored school, endorsing a religion. Thus, public schools must walk a blurry line between allowing participants to express personal beliefs without those beliefs being attached to the school as an endorsement.

The problem I have with this is not that the girls are posting scriptures, but that they are applying the scriptures inappropriately at what is essentially a competitive venue, not a cooperative one. They post scriptures about Christ giving them the victory, and it really doesn't apply to football. I'm all for the scriptures, but you can't just expect the Lord to endorse your competitive sports. He's not for competition. When did he ever tell any human to compete? No, he told humans to serve their fellow men, to obey him, and to endure to the end. As far as having prayer, I'm all for holding the prayers and skipping the football game. Who needs the football game? If you really had a group getting together just for humble prayer, that would please the Lord. But the football game is not going to please him. Forget about applying your little petty mindedness about winning a football game to the Lord. His ways are above yours.